The narrative of the "Progressive" Democrat Party in America appears to be that everyone should get a 4+ year degree at a college or university. They won't offer any qualifiers beyond that because, after all, that would be "judging". So, if a young person were to borrow $40,000 or $80,000 to obtain a Bachelor of Arts in sociology or anthropology or queer studies or women's studies, that's considered to be an "intelligent" choice by the intellectuals of the DNC. It doesn't seem to bother them that such graduates often end up working as baristas at Starbucks. A noble job, to be sure, especially amongst the caffeine challenged citizenry but one wonders if the same people wouldn't have been qualified for these positions prior to racking up such enormous debts?
Enter Mike Rowe. 4 years ago he wrote an open letter to Barack Obama about encouraging young people to open their eyes to the possibility of pursuing careers as skilled tradespeople. Skilled labourers endure much more physically demanding work than any white collar worker will ever experience but their contributions are absolutely necessary for every society to function. And they pay well. Often, very well.
Obama ignored him.
Now Rowe is trying again. He has sent a similar letter to Mitt Romney. And surprise, surprise, Romney read it. Let's hope he acts on it if he's elected president.
h/t Lance
P.S. Mike Rowe and Adam Carolla discuss the value & importance of hard work:
This is no surprise,socialists/communists abhor manual labour! That's why they have bought into their religion, someone else will have to do the dirty work while THEY give orders.
But someone has to maintain the infrastructure,after building it,and the commies solution always is to import tradesmen and labourers.
Why would Obama read the letter from Mike Rowe? He's never worked a day in his life,and people like Rowe are totally foreign to him.
I used to work with a gaggle of "educated" people.
We all basically do the same job,but out of a dozen, myself and one other are the only ones who don't have a formal university or college education. The "educated ones" also have very different political opinions.
They do not like it when I point out that while they were enriching their lives in 'school',I was paying taxes for their education while racking up experience and seniority.
Nothing quite puts a chill in the air as asking them "How did that higher learning work out for you?"
Absolutely right. A college degree, outside of the 'hard sciences', economics etc, is often not merely a waste of time, but, it removes the individual from the freedom of their own initiatives and from direct reactive contact with reality..to the realm purely of: Words.
Words. Unattached to reality. Isolated from reality. They mean whatever you want them to mean.
So, if one day the Stimulus is all about 'shovel ready projects'; the next day it's about saving public sector jobs that already exist.
Hope and change can mean 'slowing the rise of the oceans and ending war'; two impossibilities, for the first has nothing to do with man and the second is not within the power of any one man.
A vote of 'no' can mean, for the DNC, a two-thirds majority of 'yes'.
Add to that, the idea that reality can be totally owned, controlled and 'made to be whatever one wants'. Add to that, a disdain and contempt for that very same 'free reality', for the 'brute and savage reality that refuses to be tamed by Words'.
And add to that, our college degrees are heavily sites for brainwashing, as thorough and endemic as that within any Dear Leader communist or fascist regime throughout history. The college graduate emerges laden with debt, within a mindset that rejects reality and insists on living only within the haven of the Words of the Seminar Room- where anything is possible, where no hard facts of the real world intrude. This graduate is fit only for a bureaucratic unionized job - All the manufacturing goes overseas, the skills disappear..
What else does a college degree do, besides the brainwashing into leftism, the debt, the removal from reality? It removes hundreds of thousands from the employment sector. Imagine the unemployment ratio if those students, instead of removing themselves from the work force, actually moved into the work force! Are there jobs for them? No.
I pursued a science degree and I am glad because I look down on hard labor but I can't blame anybody who doesn't want to do it. It' not the money (Canadian tuition is cheap), it's the time. It's at least 4 years of BS assignments and dealing with lab TA who clearly do not want to be there. Most of my first year was a lot generalist crap that I should have been allowed to skip or truncate.
Right wingers against education?!! Oh what a surprise! The majority of educated people vote democrat. This is what's been happening, for example in Virginia in the Washington suburbs. Thousands of educated people moving in, changing the voting demograhics and hence Virginia is now a blueish state. Keeping the masses uneducated has been the goal of dictators from Hitler to Chairman Mao to the Khmer Rouge. The least educated states such as Mississippi, Alabama, Kentucky, etc. always voted Republican. Does that mean all conservatives are uneducated? Absolutely not! Romney went to Harvard, Bush to Yale, Condeleeza, Cheny and on and on are all highly educated. Show me a rich/powerful conservative and take a look at their education. However, the only way they can hold on to power is to ensure the public doesn't attend university to open their minds to new ideas; keep'em uneducated and we keep the power. How the hell is America supposed compete in the world if everyone is a welder or plumber?! We need scientists, engineers, doctors, etc. And don't get me started on the home schooling religious nutwings teaching children that dinosaurs and humans lived at the same time about 3000 years ago! You want to see the decline of America, keep that crap up. Education is never bad. Diversity of thoughts is never bad. I rarely agree with conservatives but in a democracy everyone has a right to their opinions, type of eduction and ideas. If you want some kind of right-wing only Utopia, move to Mississippi.
Why would the One discourage studies in the aforementioned subjects, the classes are breeding grounds for Dem voters. As a friend recently mentioned, recalling her time at university, the students in disciplines such as engineering tend to be conservative, the ones for whom "math is hard" tend the other way.
bill, you have a few rather serious conceptual problems.
First, is you unexamined assumption that a college degree in the social sciences or the humanities is 'an education'. These programs are actually brainwashing people, disabling any previous capacity they had for critical thinking and turning them into robots.
Kindly inform me how these programs offer 'new ideas' rather than insisting on politically correct and group-think opinions.
Second, your emphasis on scientists, engineers, doctors, is exactly right. But you have missed that although most of us support these programs, the fact is that most students go into the social sciences and humanities, the 'bird courses', where they are programmed into robots.
Third, there's no diversity of opinion allowed! Kindly note how these campuses forbid groups against abortion, mount campaigns against various speakers who are not leftist, reject any pro-life or anti-gay marriage debates.
LAS, what a sanctimonious smug comment. You self-define yourself as superior to the course, to the TAs, to the labs, and above all, to 'hard labour'. There's nothing wrong with hard labour, and it takes a lot of skill, beyond words, to work in that area of life.
" The majority of educated people vote democrat "
OTOH,the majority of smart people vote Republican.
Nice rant bill,you hit all the stereotypes right on the head. BTW,did you skip the writing classes ?
Diversity of thoughts is never bad.
As long as we agree with you right?
How the hell is America supposed compete in the world if everyone is a welder or plumber?! We need scientists, engineers, doctors, etc.
Not humanities polisci or psych. And even 'scientists' are over-rated. Another BSc holder (like myself) isn't going to do that much for the world.
Thank you ET.
My sister-in-law, who teaches at a college near Hamilton, Ontario, would agree with everything you say.
My sister went to university for 12 years. She now teaches at a university. I drive a truck for a living. I make well into 6 figures. Over double what my sister makes. No disrespect meant or intended to a university education - I'm making sure both my daughters get at least 1 degree - but blue collar employment definitely deserves more respect.
I really think the issue should be "what is a Job" If you worked your way up the ladder of Corporate Culture into a Management Position You would Know that EVERY friggen task Is YOUR JOB...
I have an Old NBC Olympic Staff produced Tape of all tasks & People involved in 1988.. The Background Music is "It's My Job"
The clogged shitter to the Sculpured Buffet..
Nothing is a Waste unless you fail to use it.
Some of the dimmest bulbs I have met in my life was while in university. Some have gone to trade schools after graduating because the subjects they had degrees in were useless in the real world. Some have failed at everything except sponging off mom and dad. There really should be a IQ test for highschool graduates to determine if perhaps a trade is not the better option.
ken(kulak)- thanks. And I'm an academic; I know from experience how students are brainwashed by empty-headed elitist faculty who live, safe and secure, in the academic cocoon.
As long as you follow the leftist ideology, you're safe in the academic cocoon, but dare to move outside of it, and the vicious attacks against 'free thought' are quite something.
After ET's most excellent comment it was rather instructive to see the Leftard troll 'Bill' twist what she, and everyone else, is saying by creating the blanket assumption "right wingers are against education".
Not true generally but indeed, I would say that most conservatives have the wisdom to question the value of specific courses of study that don't seem very "educational" or "valuable".
Bill may indeed think a country would be better off if everyone got a 4-year degree in Basket Weaving (can't judge, remember) but others beg to differ. And for this WE are deemed to be close minded.
A very alternate reality the Left lives in!
He's acting on this BEFORE the election, as he should. His campaign has contacted Rowe. This is an important issue. Not everyone needs to oor should go to university. So many young Americans are flushing away money and years for no reason
The other thing that bothers me about non-STEM degrees is that lazy and puerile perpetual adolescents believe they are mini-Einsteins because they excelled in Peace Studies - and therefore should be financially rewarded accordingly - while they wait for the next Peace Studies related job to open up. They develop a condescending attitude to their workaday counterpart - ie "my heavens I can't stock groceries - I'm a University graduate!". Their degree potentially means little to nothing.
Technical trade often require a higher IQ to be successful. Consider diagnosing complex machinery or electrical systems. I bet most academics would fail. A technician's solution has to be concretely correct. Theories don't cut it.
Agree with Lorenzo. Shunting stupid people into trades does a disservice to the trade, and to the stupid people themselves.
The best thing to do with the truly stupid is to "educate" them in a university in some worthless course like Poli Sci, or Womyns' Studies. Tuition for these courses should be drastically reduced, so that graduates could easily repay their small student loans from their wages at their inevitable job slinging lattes at Starbuck's.
fill
I can back ET up with reral world experience, as, I'v worked with atleast 20 PHD's, and most of them are useless on the factory floor or on the construction site. They can be usefull in design and development, but not in effecting their own design.
NME666, no, my point about academics living in the 'soft disciplines' of the social sciences and humanities, is not that they are useless on the factory floor or construction site. I don't think that manual skills, and they ARE skills, and 'analytic' skills are, or should be, transformable.
My point was that these academics have removed themselves from a real, empirical, observational understanding of the external objective world. They've isolated their understanding into the realm of words. Just words. Therefore, they actually believe that their words can affect and effect that external world; that if they say that the oceans must cease to rise...well, that will happen.
If they say that AGW is real, that's 'the truth', because 'everyone says so'. Despite the facts.
If they say that life does not begin at conception, then, for them, that's 'the truth'. Because they said it.
It's their firm belief that Words trump reality, and that reality can be controlled, and not merely defined, by Words.
My experience of academia, over thirty years of it, has shown me that the majority of faculty are 'left', and operate primarily within words. These departments hire clones of themselves; they do not hire anyone who is perceived as a threat. With regard to the students, they are brainwashed via the readings which they are expected to accept as valid; via the exams and essays which are expected to 'repeat the mantra', and, via peer pressure from fellow students.
It's quite the socialization and free thought is discouraged.
I recently did a contract for a lawyer. the contract consisted of handcrafted stairs that included carvings and intricate handrailings.
He loved the work but moaned about the hourly wage(45.00/hr)charged. This from a guy that dinged me for $800 for a simple boilerplate letter of conveyance.
The message here is simple.
Hey you lazy bum--go out there and buy a hardhat (Made in China) and a new pair of coveralls (Made in Bagledesh) and a saw (Made in Taiwan) and a hammer (Made in India) and go out and get a job!
There are a lot of jobs out there if you want to work!
"Lo sentimos - no hablo Inglés!"
The best engineers I have worked with got their degree AFTER they worked in the trades. I love the new graduates that have a chip on their shoulder and won't listen to the people that actually have to build their designs because we are 'just tradesmen'.
The left view themselves as academic material, and they'd be correct alas I can't see progressives' working with their hands creating something. Most progressives' work towards destroying civilized society, they want to recreate the dark ages but with one change the academics will be our overlords not the rich. If you removed the soft sciences from Academia the left would have no place to haunt for a lifetime.
Phil- earned income is taxed at the same rate as investment income. If a corporation makes a profit, that profit is taxed. Some of the after tax income is then distributed to shareholders and then taxed again. When I pay tax on my dividends it is taxed at a lower rate because it was already taxed before it reached my hands. You should be aware that every time the government reduces corporate tax rates they also decrease the dividend tax credit so that the effective tax rate on corporate income stays the same. It just gets taxed after it reaches my hands instead of before.
ET - I'm not disagreeing with you, but I believe that most tradesmen have very strong analytical skills. I am an instrumentation and control technician. I repair nuclear power plants. When a nuclear power plant isn't working right, you don't figure out what's wrong without strong analytical skills.
I have met a few millionaire "high school drop outs" in my guiding days. Whether they were from Canada or the US they were all firmly planted on the "right" side of the fence.
Just the kind of guys Obama and his ilk can't stand.
Mike- What? No eenie meenie miney moe a la Homer Simpson? :)
Seriously tho, this talk of "work" comes at a time when I am embarking on a new career path. Tomorrow I'll be starting classes on how to develop one's own business. The line of work will be similar to Nick's (5:27 PM), but not as refined as that, yet. At the age 53, it seems odd that I now have to really "work" for a living after a military career and a 14 stint with Air Canada Heavy Maintence/Aveos. But the funny thing is that during my EI, I have been able to, or have been blessed with the odd, odd job where the money came in when most needed. It is something else to to get up in the morning, go to the local hardware store to prep for the coming day, saunter over to a MacDonald's for a morning coffee (I like their coffee), and plan for the day, while sitting on my truck's tailgate enjoying the early morning freshness and a sunrise, with nobody telling me get to work. And when I do work it is a 12 hour day. I just got to learn to take time for my family and myself.
So I have lots to learn, but I do know there is a market out there for someone who can actually work with their hands, tradesman or not, it is just unbelievable.
Nick, the sad truth about him complaining about your rate & what he charged you is that you could have invested a few hours (if that) in research & drawn up a perfectly acceptable letter of conveyance yourself.
Assuming he has no experience with the material you worked on, how much time would he have to invest, along with an investment in equipment, to duplicate your work?
phil, it is not ET's "unexamined assumption", but his daily experience as an academic. Reality, phil, not something ET read in Wikipedia.
Another point about blue collar workers: usually their jobs keep them lean and fit.
Hey GaryinWpg - good luck, hope it all works out.
I'll second the thought of engineers that have worked in the field before they started designing, are the best to work for.
Interesting conversation given that I spent much of the afternoon in the company of 'intellectuals' better known as adult children still in school. I listened to everyone I could and was amazed at the change that has taken place since I darkened the doors of academe. No longer is the idea of getting a degree to get a job or do a task. Now getting a degree is reward enough in itself. If, on your deathbed, you have a dozen Phds yet have never worked a day in your life in these people's eyes you are a success.
My son went to technical school. His first job was sweeping floors in an ink factory. Today he runs two businesses and was a millionaire at about age 40. He worked his butt off and he still does.
He laughs at the elitists.
In his letter to Obama, Mike Rowe opined that it may be elitism or indifference that has led to the decline in the skilled labour workforce. I would suggest it's the former - elitism as expressed by those teaching (and preaching) the useless arts in university. Here's hoping the Romney-Ryan ticket will pick up Rowe's offer. Something tells me they will.
GaryinWpg, all the best with that.
Yup, don't want dirt under your fingernails, son.
So, here's a nice clean keyboard. Now go build that house with it.
Talk about form over function.
phil at September 9, 2012 4:56 PM
phil, phil! You off your meds phil?
Farmers, phil....welfare bum farmers!
(Careful now, you already owe me 2 quarts, Glengarrian!)
My son is a third year millwright apprentice. T4 for 2011 was over $70,000.00. He is debt free untill his house is finished in November. Their is work out in the trades.
In my experiences, dropping my Philosophic fantasy was the smartest thing I ever did.
I have pissed away more $$$ then any Starbucks Barista ever made.
Stupid hipsters are stupid.
d
There is a huge disconnect with reality in the minds of most people as to what constitutes usefulness.
The radio show nailed it; western society has been declining for some time now and sooner or later will collapse under its own narcissistic weight.
The short term future will indeed pay those few still willing to learn real world trades handsomely while the lazy self absorbed professional student class circle the abyss of debt and irrelevance.
In the end though the baggage left behind by decades of neglect will topple western society as we know it. You cannot turn back the parasitic leaching of the middle class without a major revolution in some form or another anymore.
Phil >
“If conservatives have such respect for the working man, why don't they support taxing earned income at the same rate as "investment" income.”
That’s part of your disconnect phil, the conservative “working man” is an investor, not some buck toothed hillbilly digging your ditches the way you wish to see them.
It’s too bad the hippy wannabe’s with their hands out looking for sex, drugs and an easy life don’t have the extra to spare on a few investments, but that’s what happens when you are from the spoilt pseudo intellectual club.
Knight 99 @12:32 - isn't this kind of the Buffet vs. secretary thing - confusing earned with investment income? The point being, as I understand it, that investments were at some point earned and therefore already taxed and a higher rate? Taxed twice. Please correct me if I'm wrong.
Liberal arts degrees are the worst of both worlds: almost useless nowadays in terms of employment prospects, and also useless in terms of learning. If everyone with the slightest claim to being middle class goes to university, it follows inevitably that the quality of the "education" involved will suffer. After all, most people, middle class or not, are not naturally scholarly. And since high-schools totally suck now, B.A.'s are largely remedial.
Or just what ET said @3:17
(Drive-by jerks like Bill are tedious. Come back, Bill, and defend your silly ideas.)
Black Mamba >
“...isn't this kind of the Buffet vs. secretary thing - confusing earned with investment income?”
Investment income is earned; someone takes a risk with their money to supply a demand for capital by someone who needs it to build their business. In a sense it is gambling, but in another it’s the risk and fuel that drives a free market economy.
If someone doesn’t take a risk with their money or time, the laws of the universe have us sitting in dark caves waiting for death.
The confusion runs with phil who doesn’t seem able to differentiate between crony capitalism, monopolies, free markets, Capitalism, and a conservative working man.
All are not equal except to the confused.
By phils assertion why should phil get paid any money at all for whatever he does?
Why does he get to decide what and how much he gets to earn, keep, or have at all?
The fact that he has the leisure time to troll SDA as frequently as he does proves that he has too much time and money on his hands for allot of peoples tastes.
Possibly it’s phil that should have a 2 or 3 room flat in a tenement building near public transport, a predetermined clothing & food allowance and “X” amount of days off determined by the state. Failing to do so should result in indefinite detention or execution to make way for those that will work within the rules laid forth by the party.
Black Mamba #2 >
Sorry didn’t answer your full question all that well the first time.
We are indeed taxed on Capital Gains, not the investment moneys used (as you stated it would double taxation). We can also offset any Capital Gains with any incurred Capital losses. So if you invest $10K and gain +10K in one investment, but lose -5K in another, you are only responsible for +5K Capital Gains (totalled). The initial investment was already taxed at one point before it was yours to invest.
Capital Gains taxes are kept low by conservative governments to stimulate investment interest. As stated before, young entrepreneurs/ business people rely on investor’s capital to upstart and grow their businesses.
"Capital Gains taxes are kept low by conservative governments to stimulate investment interest."
Why shouldn't earned income be kept as low to encourage work?
Exactly as I said, conservatives have contempt for those who earn their crust from working their asses off, giving preferential tax treatment to those who make money sitting on their asses. I thought conservatives abhorred govt. picking winners and losers in the market place, 99?
Phil >
“Why shouldn't earned income be kept as low to encourage work?”
You’re obviously either on drugs, psychologically challenged, or all of the above and just plain trolling so why keep going with this? Your conclusion is stupid and you know it is.
You’re attempting to make a socialist case by separating an “investor” from the average working man and then further to confuse Free Markets and Capitalism with crony capitalism.
I’ll bet you don’t ask your boss for a reduction in pay EVER, in fact I’m betting you’re the biggest whiner around about your pay wherever you eke out a living for yourself. Or is it just Social Assistance and you’re looking for a little monthly increase from the taxpayer?
The question YOU posed and I answered –
“If conservatives have such respect for the working man, why don't they support taxing earned income at the same rate as "investment" income.” – phil
You received the correct answer and didn’t like it. Oh well.
In fact most conservatives would be in favor of the same tax rates between Capital Gains & Income, providing the Income Tax rate was lowered to Capital Gains rates.
Yall wouldn't like that much though would ya? No extra for you at all floating around out there.
Knight, you are truly an imbecile. Reread your last post and see if you don't agree. And I'm sorry to tell you this, but there is still no cure for stupid. It's a tradgedy you and kulak can vote.
phil >
"but there is still no cure for stupid"
LOL, You finally got one right for a change!
Just continue to whine away about farmers and disagree with everything else with your little one liners as you do every day on SDA, cause there is no cure.
Thanks, Knight 99. "The initial investment was already taxed at one point before it was yours to invest."
That's my understanding, and it's why Buffet's claim is so disingenuous.